A red bike that was given to Diana, Princess of Wales as a child and was kept by the Spencer family’s housekeeper is set to fetch around £30,000 at an auction.
The ‘Tracker’ bike was ridden by Lady Diana Spencer during the 1970s at the Spencer family estate at Althorp in Northamptonshire.
The red two-wheeler is similar in design to the classic ‘Chopper’ bicycle for kids, which was extremely popular in the 1970s.
Diana’s father the late 8th Earl Spencer eventually sold his daughter’s bike at an auction for £20 to a housekeeper, who kept it as a memento.
It was acquired by a toy museum in 2007 after the housekeeper passed away in 2006.
The bicycle is described as ‘an exceptional piece of Royalty memorabilia, with excellent provenance.’
Princess Diana’s childhood bike (pictured) is being sold at auction and is expected to fetch around £30,000
It was ridden by Lady Diana Spencer during the 1970s at the Spencer family estate at Althorp in Northamptonshire. Pictured: Diana as a child
It retains all of its original features, including saddle, tyres and chrome mudguards.
It also comes along with a Christmas card dated 1994 that Diana sent to the housekeeper, Maudie Pendrey.
The bike is being offered in a sale hosted by East Bristol Auctions in Bristol on Friday and Saturday next week, with an auctioneer’s price estimate of £20,000 to £30,000.
It comes only weeks after Princess Diana’s former car was sold for more than anticipated at auction.
A Ford Escort that was once given to the Princess as an engagement gift was bought by a museum in South America for £52,640.
Three months ago, another bike previously owned by the Princess was also sold at auction.
She used to pedal around London as a single woman on the beloved 1970s blue Raleigh Traveller bike while she worked as a teenage nanny in Kensington before she married Prince Charles in 1981.
The red ‘Tracker’ bike was beloved by Princess Diana, pictured as a child, when she was younger
Princess Diana seen with the Prince of Wales, Prince William and Prince Harry during a cycling trip in Tresco, the Isles of Scilly
Princess Diana’s beloved 1970s blue bike, which she used to pedal around London as a single woman, was also sold at auction this year
However, it was dubbed the ‘shame bike’ and sold after Diana’s royal advisers deemed it ‘unfit for a princess’.
She was ordered to stop riding it after the engagement was announced and quietly sold the cycle to a friend’s father.
He stored it in a garage for 27 years before selling it in 2008 for just £211.
The three-gear bike, which has 26in wheels and the pump fitted to the frame, was later sold in 2018 for £9,200 before coming up for sale again in April with Sussex-based Burstow & Hewett.
It sold for a staggering £44,000 amid a rising demand for royal memorabilia.
This appetite for Princess Diana’s former possessions was again shown in June when a Ford Escort she drove around in for years sold at auction.
Her former car was also sold at auction earlier in 2021. Pictured: Lady Diana Spencer in her Ford Escort car watching Prince Charles playing polo at Windsor on 1 May, 1981
The Princess of Wales got rid of the car two months after giving birth to Prince William. Pictured, the ‘lost’ Ford Escort car that Prince Charles gave to Princess Diana as an engagement present
Lady Diana Spencer was given the silver 1.6L Ghia saloon by the Prince of Wales as an engagement present in May 1981, two months before they were married in July 1981.
She often drove it to watch Charles play polo, and the bonnet features a silver frog – a copy of the original mascot which was given to the princess by her sister Sarah and which Diana kept when she sold the car.
The princess stopped using the vehicle soon after giving birth to Prince William in 1982, and it was later bought for £6,000 by an antiques dealer.
It had belonged to royal fan Tina Kirkpatrick since around 2000, who drove it only sparingly without disclosing its history to her friends.
The vehicle was sold in an online auction by Reeman Dansie, of Colchester, Essex, to a telephone bidder for £52,640, including VAT and the buyer’s premium.
The hammer price was £47,000, exceeding the pre-auction estimate of £30,000 to £40,000.